Happy Birthday to ME

Birthday celebrations started early around here. Wed night we had Ashley, her sister Laura as well as Andrew, one of our summer interns over for dinner. I baked a whole chicken (for the 1st time ever), made mashed potatoes and gravy (for the first time ever in UG), mastered cooking fresh green beans (for the first time ever), AND...... made my own chocolate cake with chocolate icing FROM SCRATCH for the first time ever! IT was AWESOME, and easy.

I wish I had my camera on me when all the guests arrived. Kent started the procession by running in wearing a grass skirt, singing "Happy Birthday" (not the song, just the words.... think barber shop quartet, He being the bass). Then came Andrew carrying pineapples, followed by Ashley with donuts and bread, Laura had a wallet, then each of the girls entered carrying their gifts as well. Keep in mind that as they entered they each sang out "Happy Birthday"! It was so fun... then they presented their gifts one at a time, starting with Snuggle Bug.

Dinner was excellent, the only problem was that one chicken really isn't enough meat for 9 people, but nobody went hungry.... that I know of. They lovingly put a large "power's over" candle in the middle of my cake and sang ALL of happy birthday. There was much oohing and ahhing over the cake, it was FABULOUS!

For those of you who might be interested... Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Icing links. Both of these recipes have very basic ingredients, all of which I had in my cabinet! The only thing I couldn't do was "mix on low speed" cause as of today, I don't own a mixer. BUT it is my birthday wish, and Kent is going to price them for me this weekend!

After dinner was cleaned up, we all hit the sack, cause the next morning we were headed to Murchison Falls. I got up at 4:30 to put an egg casserole in the oven, then everyone else got up around 5:30.

Murchison was AWESOME, once again, but I will post on that separately cause it was amazing!

After a long day we rolled back into Gulu, around 8:00pm and had Pizza at Sankofa. While there, Brian (the owner) brought out a bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup adorned with another "power's over" candle. Lots of fun! It was a day that I will not quickly forget!